Little Toy Robot

Everybody knows the following urban legend: A man picks up a hooker in a bar, takes her back to his hotel room, and wakes up in his bathtub missing a liver and holding a note that says “if you want to live call 911.” Hell, it’s the story of my life. Will Christopher Baer takes this as the starting point for this novel, his first. Phineas Poe is an ex-investigator for the police department’s internal affairs division. In the past few months his wife died and he lost both is mind and his job. Although it’s questionable that he was ever sane in the first place. The first thing he does after being released from a mental institution is lose his liver. The problem is that Poe thinks he’s in love with Jude, the woman who took it. He also thinks he wants to kill her.

Kiss Me, Judas is narrated in a hallucinogenic blur. From Poe’s first-person account we are treated to this suspenseful mystery tale through a haze of medication and good, old-fashioned insanity. How did Poe’s wife really die? What happened to Poe’s liver? Who the hell are these people around him? The linear story is broken into fragments; events are sometimes revised and replaced, people are mutable, but it’s all convincing. This type of novel would get on my nerves if it was poorly done. Baer sometimes lays it on pretty thick with the Biblical allusions, but for me this was a compulsive, sickly fascinating read.

…but it’s frickin’ cold. Stay safe and warm, everyone up north. I know what it’s like.

(View from my window a few days before leaving New York, almost exactly a year ago.)

Michael Chabon’s review of The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes has been published in The New York Review of Books. The first half (?) has been published online.

Chabon has his pulse on what I think is a large part of the appeal of the Sherlock Holmes stories:

While he was busy scorning the Holmes stories and planning Holmes’s death, and nursing the suppurating pride of a would-be Walter Scott condemned, first by necessity and then by success, to write popular fiction, Conan Doyle was also, from the beginning, tangibly having fun.

And I think Chabon has his pulse on the reason Arthur Conan Doyle himself is so fascinating:

Like most writers, Conan Doyle wrote for money. His misfortune as an artist was to make piles of it, and become famous around the world, by writing stories he did not consider worthy of his talent, while receiving less credit or pay for works that meant more to him; and to be so freehanded in his philanthropy, wild schemes, and spending habits, and so well-endowed with children, that the piles of money were never quite tall enough.

Ponce de Leon Park Postcard Gallery. It used to be an amusement park, then a minor league baseball field. Now it’s where I shop!

The First Annual The Morning News Tournament of Books. Download the brackets. Play along. Bet heavily.

The Ron de Waal Sherlock Holmes Collection can be yours for only $80,000.

Infinite Hasselhoffs. Warning: Not safe for work. Unless your workplace is… weird.

maisonneuve has an article on Fritz Leiber.

Officially my current favorite band of January 2005: The Fiery Furnaces.

Courtney Love:

Singer Courtney Love has regained full custody of her 11-year-old daughter, her attorney said. Love, 40, lost custody of Frances Bean Cobain, her daughter with late Nirvana singer Kurt Cobain, in 2003 after she overdosed on painkillers in front of the girl.

A.J. Pierzynski (former SF Giants catcher now with Chicago White Sox):

One of those now-it-can-be-told stories the White Sox, A.J. Pierzynski’s new employer, surely haven’t heard: During a Giants exhibition game last spring, Pierzynski took a shot to his, shall we say, private parts. Trainer Stan Conte rushed to the scene, placed his hands on Pierzynski’s shoulders in a reassuring way, and asked how it felt. “Like this,” said Pierzynski, viciously delivering a knee to Conte’s groin.

I have a special, personal appreciation for librarians, so fiction featuring librarians always catches my eye. Sometimes this leads to disappointment, as with Mel Odom’s The Rover. But I saw a book in Borders the other day that looked good, The Book of Flying by Keith Miller. It’s a fable, basically, about a librarian named Pico who lives in a city where some people have wings and soar in the skies above, and some are bound to the earth. Pico, a member of the latter group, falls in love with a winged girl who realizes they can’t be together, and he dares to follow an ancient clue to learn the secret of flight. The novel is written in an extremely poetic style, but it is very effective and not at all overblown (if it gives you some idea, there’s a prominent blurb by Ursula K. LeGuin). I didn’t actually buy it, but I read about 50 pages in one sitting on one of those very uncomfortable benches at Borders and was very impressed.

Because I’m being a schmuck and talking about the book without actually reading it, here are some links for the random Googlers who find this post to people who have read it:

• A Journey of Words: Keith Miller’s The Book of Flying, a review on Strange Horizons by Yoon Ha Lee
• The book is mentioned in this installment of The Agony Column
• A review on Nimble Spirit

I like to take chances, but sometimes this means I get burned. The latest disappointment is–don’t laugh–Barnum, a six-part comic series written by Harold Chaykin and David Tischman. I am easily seduced by the circus and the carnival, counting books such as The Circus of Dr Lao, Geek Love, Something Wicked This Way Comes, Blind Voices, and Nights at the Circus among my favorites (before you ask: no, I haven’t read The Circus in Winter yet). I like the idea of spectacle and show, looking at stories like these as taking place at an intersection of the real and unreal. They question the nature of the mundane and the extraordinary through the lens of wonder. Whatever.

Barnum begins with promise, featuring an exciting cover and a moody, anticipatory first page. But by the second page, things begin to fall apart, as members of Barnum’s troop are introduced with quick thumbnails as if this were the marketing copy on the back of the book. There’s Span, the human acrobat! He looks like a Golden Age Marvel superhero. There’s Plastino, the obligatory ethnic contortionist and sword-swallower. There’s Primeva and Hypnosia, the large-breasted tamers of animals and men, respectively. There’s Colonel Dyna-Mite, “twenty-five inches high with the strength of ten men!” And there’s Chang and Eng. Yeah, seriously.

Unfortunately, none of these one-dimensional freaks, nor Barnum, nor his Bumbling business partner Bailey, elicit any sort of interest as they get caught up in a plot to stop the evil genius Nikolai Tesla (WTF?), whose weapon of choice is a joy buzzer, and his sidekick Ada Lovelace (WTF?) from taking over the American West. Barnum’s circus is recruited into the cause by a secret service agent named Firestone Kelly, and much football-stadium-like chanting along the lines of “U.S.A.! U.S.A.!” follows.

I couldn’t wait to be finished with the sixth and final installment of the story, since I had long since ceased to care and found no redeeming elements in either the artwork or the writing. There are some decent action scenes, of course, including an exploding dirigible, but it all led me to believe that since superhero-team steampunk adventures are derivative in the first place (reimagining historical figures and tropes), it simply won’t do to have them be doubly derivative by copying more successful experiences which blur historical fact and fiction like The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Of course, the reason League succeeds is that it is plot- and character-driven, in addition to being clever; it’s not just a gimmick or a game. The excretable Image (is that redundant?) series Alternation, which tries to build an American League and doesn’t know when to stop, is a shining example of How Not to Do It, and Barnum is no better.

At the beginning of the month, I mentioned some reading goals for January.

Nymphomation, by Jeff Noon
Has been read, and I commented on it here.

Altered Carbon, by Richard K. Morgan
I thought this book lived up to the hype. As promised, it was an intense mixture of Sci-Fi and noir, with a ton of ideas packed into a fast-moving plot with some engaging characters. And one really bizarre sex scene. I look forward to Broken Angels even though I hear it’s not as good, simply because I look forward to Morgan’s universe unfurling some more. If the story is half decent I’ll be happy.

The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes
I’ve read all the stories and notations for The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, the first 12 short stories. The early stories and novels, in which Holmes is practically decadent, are my favorites. I am going to skip over the Memoirs (which I just reread last month!) and continue reading a story a day. I have to admit that I find “Sherlockian scholarshop” in which the stories are reconciled with the theory that Sherlock Holmes was real to be extremely unappealing, though I do enjoy the historical notes, illustrations, and period photographs.

Falling Angel, by William Hjortsberg
I still haven’t gotten this in the mail yet. Damn you, random eBay guy! Damn you!

Vergil in Averno, by Avram Davidson
After 50 pages, I am bumping this book, the second in the Vergil trilogy, from my reading list, returning it to the library, and never trying to read it again. Davidson was a horrible novelist, and at his worst he is so fumbling and digressive with his prose that it is, to me, unreadable. It’s a shame, because The Phoenix and the Mirror actually wasn’t that bad.

Not Quite Dead Enough, by Rex Stout (two Nero Wolfe novellas)
The title novella is quite excellent, an intriguing mystery that develops with quite a twist as Archie dreams up a rather shocking way to lure Wolfe out of retirement. It is WWII and Wolfe, an extremely fat and lazy man, has put aside his detective business to train himself to be a soldier in the army and kill some Germans. Fortunately, for his own sake as well as the sake of the Allied forces, Wolfe is convinced he can contribute to the war effort in more appropriate ways. The second novella, “Booby Trap,” follows chronologically on the heels of the first but is a bit more humdrum.

Natural History, by Justina Robson
I haven’t read this yet. I’ll probably start it over the weekend.

Swindon’s Magic Roundabout:

All they did was combine two roundabouts in one - the first the conventional, clockwise variety and the second, which revolved inside the first, sending traffic anti-clockwise.

This would never work in Atlanta, where even the phenomenon of the four-way stop sign is a recipe for disaster.

Fauna in the (Sherlock Holmes) Canon. Who’s afraid of the big, bad Indian swamp adder?

The new Mississippi Review: High Pulp Fiction. From Anthony Neil Smith’s intro:

Clean pulp? Why in the hell would you want that? But I’ve met a lot of crime readers who want the fedoras, the dead bodies, the tough guy talk, and the femme fatales, but they don’t want the stabbing, the shooting, the “fuck”s or the fucking. If that’s you, stop reading now and go find yourself a mystery about innkeeping or something.

Fuck yeah! Let’s go beat up some hookers!

The Golden Fiddle is back after a holiday (?) hiatus. Is Jessica Alba the new Britney?

Pitchfork has redesigned. Despite the more playful shade of blue, they are still better than you.

Overheard in the Office launches. Funniest entry so far:

Boss: From now on, people, we’re going to make Perfection our baseline.

The development team laughs.

Developer: Dude, whatever the fuck you’ve been reading, stop it.

I like the Dogs Die in Hot Cars album, Please Describe Yourself (thanks, Justin). It fills a hole in my heart left by XTC, who haven’t released a studio recording in years (the last thing I heard was Andy Partridge’s theme song for the DOA Fox show Wonderfalls). Specifically, it provides, in the absence of XTC, the requisite amount of staccato vocals, quirky lyrics, jerky music, infectious energy and beautiful harmonies to make me happy.

That is not to say that their vocals, lyrics, music, energy, or harmonies are as good as XTC. It’s not the same. Also, they sound like a variety of other bands; the Dexys Midnight Runners influence is obvious. But they are what they are. If I ever sound like this, please shoot me.

I was thinking of buying the iPod shuffle. After all, I don’t have an iPod yet, and I like the portability and price of this one. But two things are casting the shadow of a doubt over my resolve.

The first is the lack of a display. I’m trying to decide if this will synch with my rather impulsive personality. If I wanted to hear a certain song now, I’d be out of luck.

The second is the tiny, tiny warning at the bottom of Apple’s product page. After the useful note that “Music capacity is based on 4 minutes per song and 128Kbps AAC encoding,” there is this enigmatic warning: “Do not eat iPod shuffle.” Seriously! I don’t know how I feel about that, because sometimes I just need a snack, you know?

The track list to the much-anticipated new Decemberists album, Picaresque, is on their blog:

1. The Infanta
2. We Both Go Down Together
3. Eli, the Barrow Boy
4. The Sporting Life
5. The Bagman’s Gambit
6. From My Own True Love (Lost at Sea)
7. Sixteen Military Wives
8. The Engine Driver
9. On the Bus Mall
10. The Mariner’s Revenge Song
11. Of Angels and Angles

It also looks like the table of contents of an anthology of Victorian adventure stories. But I’ve heard a few of these new tracks and they are indeed Decemberist songs, and they are indeed as good as those on the other two full-length albums. Picaresque hits stores on March 22nd.

The latest is “Thriller.” This is starting to get gimmicky. Not to mention that it sucks. Stop me if I start to get cranky!!!

Matthew Cheney links to an mini-seminar on China Mieville’s latest doorstop, Iron Council. I’ve printed out the PDF to read at home. (Yes, even the Little Toy Robot has to work sometimes.)

Also: Mississippi library system puts best-selling book back on shelves. Interestingly, there’s not a word from an actual librarian in the media coverage of the story.

It appears that the last thing Will Eisner wrote was a Spirit/Escapist crossover story for Michael Chabon’s quarterly comics anthology:

Before Eisner entered the hospital for his heart surgery, he finished one last story, set for publication in April by Dark Horse, in which The Spirit meets Chabon’s fictional brainchild, the Escapist, and the two characters wrestle with society’s need for superheroes and simple solutions in a complex age.

That issue of The Escapist (#6) should appear in April. In the meantime, issue #5 is scheduled for a 2/23 release and features contributions from Howard Chaykin, Jason Hall, Kevin McCarthy, Roy Thomas, Eric Wight, Paul Grist, Jeffrey Brown, David Hahn, Shawn Martinbrough, and others. [via]